


Something Different

by snailboat64



Category: Human Target - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-06
Updated: 2011-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snailboat64/pseuds/snailboat64
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ilsa insists on helping Chance plant listening devices for a case, which leads them to taking an uncomfortable look at their feelings for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Different

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted on Fanfiction.net

Rating: T

Disclaimer.Human Target does not belong to me. no money made in this

 

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-1-

"There's no such thing as personal space when you're on a job, Ilsa. I did try and warn you."

Chance's words tickled as he whispered in her ear. He was right of course, she has been warned that going out on a job would at times force her far from her comfort zone but she had been unable to resist the rare opportunity of sneaking a look at the Ethelwaite collection the night before the exhibit was premiered to a select few benefactors at the museum. Seeing the collection of medieval artefacts before the general public was not enough for Ilsa, she wanted to see them before even her rich and influential peers got their preview.

Watching Chance and his team work had made Ilsa realise she lived a pretty dull existence in comparison with their chaotic, adrenaline filled lives and so she had found herself looking for an opportunity to partake in a small act of rebellion. Going with Chance to scout out the museum had seemed perfect. There was little to no risk of violence, all they had to do was avoid the security guards and plant some surveillance equipment in preparation for the private showcase the following evening. Guerrero had declared the museum's own surveillance inadequate as the cameras were poorly positioned and there was no audio to the feed.

Chance had been extremely reluctant to let Ilsa tag along, resisting all her logical, well planned arguments until she finally threatened to tip off the museum were he to go without her. He had tried to put her off as best he could but every warning he issued only increased Ilsa's determination to go with him. Winston took Chance aside and what she saw of the animated exchange led Ilsa to believe that the former police detective was actually taking her side. Perhaps he felt that if she was going to insist on following Chance into the field it would be safer is she went on a relatively safe mission to plant a few bugs than risking her tagging along on a real mission. Chance finally seemed to decide that the combination of Winston pleading her case and the added hassle of Ilsa tipping off the museum would make what should have been a simple task pointlessly complicated.

"Fine." He grumbled. He threw a backpack in her direction in her direction and she caught it awkwardly. "No heels. No skirt. Wear something you can run in."

She wasn't quite sure what to expect in terms of the break-in itself but when Chance dragged her aside to avoid a patrolling security guard she had hissed a complaint about the rough way he manhandled her into their cramped hiding place and crushed his body in on top of her.

They were probably only crammed awkwardly together in that alcove for a minute or two whilst the security guard went through the motions of checking the room but it felt so much longer to Ilsa. The guard's actions seemed automatically performed, the result of repeating the same cursory checks over and over until they were the result of habit rather than genuine vigilance. However perfunctorily the guard performed his duties Ilsa felt sure their presence would be detected. It seemed impossible that he would overlook the presence of two people barely even hidden from sight in the tiny recess in the wall behind one end of an information board.

Ilsa felt her heart thumping so hard and so fast that it seemed were the guard to stand too close to the wall she was pushed against he would surely feel the vibration of her runaway pulse. She didn't even realise she was holding her breathe until Chance almost soundlessly whispered "Breathe" into her ear.

She had undoubtedly got the adrenaline rush she had been seeking as they hid from the security guard. The thrill of being so close to being caught somewhere she wasn't supposed to be took her back to being a teenager again. For the most part she'd been the model student at the boarding schools where she'd spent her adolescent years but occasionally she had been seduced into taking a walk on the wild side. She had snuck away from the dormitory after lights out from time to time to meet up with some of the older girls and enjoy elicit cigarettes and pilfered bottles of Schnapps, sometimes even meeting up with boys.

Hiding in the museum with Chance wasn't quite as straight forward as sneaking around at school had been. As terrifying as the house mother was, she was never armed with anything more dangerous than a sharp tongue and the threat of expulsion. The museum security men, on the other hand, were armed with 9mm pistols.

Once she followed Chance's instruction to breathe, Ilsa's heartbeat calmed down to a mere gallop and the feeling of impending cardiac arrest faded. The guard had already passed the area in which they were hiding, his eyes sweeping unseeing past their hiding place and Ilsa was surprised to find that despite the initial adrenaline rush she felt quite safe, tucked out of sight with Chance.

She supposed she shouldn't feel that surprised that Chance's presence was so reassuring, after all the man had already put his life on the line to save hers, it was how she met him in the first place. There was something troublingly different about this though. She had put herself in this situation and intruded into his world, not just in the usual manner by issuing orders that were ignored whenever it suited him or by raising ethical objections to his methods. She had bullied and pushed her way into tonight's mission and although she was completely confident that Chance could deal with any complication her presence caused, she did feel a small pang of guilt for making him take her along just to satisfy her need for a little excitement.

If Guerrero had been the one sneaking into the museum she would not have tried to tag along and that knowledge troubled her slightly. It meant that it was Chance specifically she wished to share her little adventure with and truth be told he was part of the appeal. She hadn't foreseen, on a conscious level at least, that she would spend part of the evening with her body pinned to the wall by Chance's powerful frame and she was quite unprepared for her reaction to it.

Her first response had been pure reflex. She had protested his rough and over-familiar manner as he shoved them both out of sight but when the shock subsided, and it seemed that they remained undiscovered, all sorts of feelings began to surface. She felt guilty that she felt so alive, pressed against another man when Marshall, her beloved husband was dead. It didn't matter that the contact was in no way sexual, just her heart beating so hard felt like an intimate betrayal. She could feel Chance's heart beat too, strong and steady beneath the hand she'd placed on his chest in attempt to push him away in the split second before she'd realised he was shoving her out of sight. There had been no chance to rearrange themselves before the guard stepped into view so Ilsa found herself trapped with one hand pinned between them, her back to the wall and Chance's body crushed against hers, his mouth barely an inch from her ear.

Ilsa tried to think of Marshall as Chance's heart beat beneath her hand and his breath whispered against her ear. He was a good man and she missed him. His death was the end of her world and she knew the pain of his absence would never really heal or fade away completely. She had in a way felt relieved that her life was also in danger when he was murdered, the threat had allowed her to grieve privately and in relative solitude in her fortress of private security. It was Marshall himself, in a way, that finally drew her back out in to the world, or rather his legacy. Without Marshall and Ilsa Pucci at the helm their foundation faltered under the weight of bureaucracy and lack of leadership. Wealth wasn't the only the Puccis' only asset and without their abilities to charm, shame and generally manipulate heads of state and multinational corporations alike the organisation had lost much of its influence. If she didn't step up and take Marshall's place his life's work would fall apart and that was something she knew she couldn't live with. She had sought Chance's help for the sake of her husband's memory and in doing so had inadvertently opened up a new world.

It was this new world that was the problem. She had justified bankrolling Chance's highly unusual team by arguing that it was extension of what the Marshall Pucci Foundation sought to achieve, to help those who needed it. In her heart though, Ilsa wondered whether Marshall himself really would have approved. Marshall always tried to fight for the everyday people who found themselves caught up events beyond their control, civilians in war torn countries, orphans, victims of natural disasters and man made catastrophes. She wondered if her late husband would have thought of men like Chance as part of the problem rather than the solution. Even when he decided to fight the good fight, how many people had Chance, Guerrero and maybe even Winston, left without husbands, wives and parents? Marshall abhorred violence but to Chance and the others it was merely another tool to be utilised. Despite Chance's motto - no one deserves to die - when it came to it he could and would kill when he saw it as necessary. Perhaps Marshall would have felt more sympathy for those who became collateral damage in the team's missions than for the clients who could afford their help.

There was something about Chance that Ilsa couldn't help responding to, his genuine need to atone. Chance wasn't a good man and he was well aware of that. There was something else too. If Ilsa has been forced to put a name to it she probably would have called it an awareness. He was completely aware of the horror and pain he had caused in his life before becoming Christopher Chance and he was equally aware that there would never be a release from the guilt of the things he had done. He embraced this awareness and never allowed himself even the merciful delusion that he would ever satisfactorily make amends for all he had done. It had been in a way easy for Marshall to be a good person, it was in his nature but for Chance it was different. Chance's nature had been corrupted by those who had deliberately manipulated him into becoming a cold instrument of violence. Ilsa found it heart-breaking whenever she saw Chance relaxed and easy going around Winston and Guerrero. It was like she caught a glimpse of who he could have been had he not crossed paths with the Old Man who warped him into becoming Junior and it was these moments that gave her hope.

Ilsa felt a new wave of guilt that her thoughts had once again turned back to Chance instead of Marshall. She could pretend that she had got involved with the team to assist them in fighting the good fight but she knew that part of the reason was to try to help Chance the damaged man, not Chance the unconventional bodyguard. It was this desire to become involved with Chance personally that worried her, it felt disloyal to Marshall's memory and being so physically close to him as they waited for the coast to be clear only clouded her judgement further. She wasn't blind, the moment she first laid eyes on Chance she had seen he was a very attractive man but it had been an objective observation, made when her grief was still excruciatingly raw. Now, however, she was forced to examine her feelings for Chance without that emotional buffer and she found that she wanted to be much more to him than his employer or even his friend…

"Okay, we're good to go." Chance said stepping back in to the room that the security guard had just vacated.

As soon as he moved away Ilsa missed the feeling of his body against hers and felt slightly unsteady on her feet. She had enjoyed Chance's close physical proximity despite the onslaught of guilt and confusion it had brought. She would have to process those feelings later and decipher the implications when she had the time and space to do so. In the meantime there was a job to be finished.

"Lead the way, Chance." She said. "I'm right behind you."

  
-2-

Ilsa Pucci was a pain in the ass. She had been from day one and Chance knew that, despite her promises, she would never simply sit back and be a silent benefactor. Usually he could palm her off on Winston and avoid the never ending stream of questions and objections each new case seemed to bring, but this time she had seized on the idea of going with him to the museum to set up the surveillance kit. He wasn't happy about it and argued against it long after he knew he wouldn't be able to change her mind. Even Winston waded in, pointing out that it was easier to throw her a bone than have her interfering at a less convenient time to prove a point. So he agreed, reluctantly, to take her along.

Getting into the museum itself was almost embarrassingly easy. Guerrero had set them up with all the necessary passcards and the locks that weren't electronic were simple enough to pick. Chance was amused with Ilsa's horror at the ease with which they gained access to the building, she seemed to see it as a violation of some great temple of learning. To him of course it was just another building, it's contents and whatever ideals it stood for were of no consequence when what mattered was getting in and out cleanly.

He'd warned her that she'd have to dress appropriately and she'd obliged by swapping her usual high heels, chic pencil skirt and designer blouse for jeans, a sweater and sneakers, all in dark colours. It was strange to see her wearing something other than her self-imposed office uniform or a couture evening gown and it struck him how much smaller she seemed dressed in street clothes. Her usual clothes were part of the armoury she used to play her role as head of the Marshall Pucci Foundation and without them to hide behind she seemed somehow fragile.

Once Chance had convinced her that talking very softly was a lot more discreet than hissing at him in a loud stage whisper, Ilsa wasn't too much of a hindrance. She had a surprisingly light step when treading softly in sneakers, a stark contrast in comparison to the sharp clack of her high heels as she strode about the office.

Despite her pathological need to interfere with his work, Chance liked Ilsa, and respected her even. It had taken a lot to track him down at the ashram, and not just money. Finding him would not have been easy and must have taken a lot of initiative and determination, not to mention serious balls. He never did get a completely satisfactory explanation from Ilsa as to how she managed to find him and she took such delight in being vague about the details that he let her keep her secret. He could make a fair assumption as to how it was achieved and it seemed important to her to feel as though she had got one over on him, so letting her win that round had seemed harmless enough.

In hindsight though, letting her feel in charge may have been a mistake, especially if following him 'into the field' was going to be a regular occurrence. She should never be in the firing line, it wasn't her job and he hated the additional responsibility of watching not only his own back but a passenger too. To be able to function, Chance needed to compartmentalise and Ilsa just wouldn't stay in her assigned box. When she was his client he'd protected her and as his benefactor he was willing and grateful to make use of her money and resources but what she was asking him to do now was something different and dangerous. Whether she realised it or not, she was forcing herself in to a world that destroyed all but the most ruthless and vicious. There was no place in it for joyriders.

Placing bugs was at least a fairly routine gig with little in the way of surprises to worry about. Chance had placed about half of the devices, with Winston guiding him via his earpiece as to the best positions and angles to avoid blind spots, when his friend suddenly barked a warning that the security guard was making his rounds. Chance reacted immediately and grabbed Ilsa, shoving them both out of sight in an unlit recess behind a display.

For the next couple of minutes his attention was focused on the security guard, although luckily he did notice that Ilsa was holding her breath and reminded her to breathe before her body did that for her. If she had held it too long she wouldn't have been able to overcome a loud automatic gasp for oxygen, which would have definitely attracted the guard's attention. When the guard moved on Chance went to continue the task of bugging the room but was surprised to find Ilsa remained frozen in her hiding place against the wall. He swore softly causing some momentary panic from Winston in his earpiece.

"It's okay." He muttered. "Ilsa's just frozen up for a moment."

He crept back to their hiding place.

"Ilsa!" He hissed. There was no response. He pulled on her arm. "C'mon! It's okay, we're good to go!"

Her eyes lost their distant look as she snapped back to the here and now.

"Lead the way, Chance." She said imperiously. "I'm right behind you."

Chance decided against berating her for letting her mind wander. He could talk to her about the importance of remaining focused later. As he planted the last of the bugs, he paused to allow Ilsa the chance to look at the exhibition that she had insisted on seeing. Curiously, she seemed to have lost interest in the items. It would appear that his gut feeling was right, tonight's escapade had more to do with thrill-seeking than it did to do with art appreciation.

"Do you want a closer look?" He asked her. She looked puzzled for a second before realising he was offering to remove items from their display for her too examine.

"Oh no! I couldn't possibly! They are so fragile, I wouldn't want to damage them!"

He shrugged, unsurprised by her answer.

"Well if you've finished looking, we should probably get out of here."

Ilsa nodded and followed him as he retraced their steps out of the museum.

Back at the office Winston was keen to hear how the job had gone as soon as Ilsa was out of earshot.

"It was fine." Chance said in response to the barrage of questions. "She was a bit awkward and she was in a world of her own for a moment whilst we were hiding from the guard but she soon snapped out of it."

"Did she get her look at the exhibit?" Winston asked.

"Yeah." He replied. "Although when it came to it she didn't seem that bothered."

"I was afraid of that." Winston frowned. "This might sound crazy but I think that…"

"She's thrill seeking dude." Guerrero cut in. Winston glared at the man who had yet again popped up mid-conversation and stolen his metaphorical thunder by blurting out the insight he'd been leading up to.

"I know." Chance said.

"Is it gonna be a problem?" Guerrero asked, ignoring the evil looks Winston was shooting his way.

Chance sighed, "It could be. It depends how far she's going to push it."

"Maybe you should dial down your whole noble warrior vibe for a bit then dude." Guerrero sniggered.

"My what?" Chance spluttered.

"Come on Chance, you know what he means." Winston said awkwardly. "You've played the hero card to female clients in the past, taken advantage of a few er… fringe benefits. Ilsa's not immune you know."

"No," Chance said, shaking his head. "You've got that all wrong. Ilsa identifies me more with her husband's killers than some kind of hero figure. She despises the things that I've done."

"You're a reformed character, Chance." Winston pointed out. "That kind of makes you even more heroic in Ilsa's eyes."

"You're damaged goods, bro. Chicks dig that." Guerrero grinned. "You're all broken and she wants to fix you."

Chance mulled that over for a minute. Ilsa had chosen to go on a job with him specifically, not Guerrero, Winston or Ames, him. She had frozen up after they had been pressed together in the darkness. Could her distraction have had more to do with his physical proximity than the risk of being discovered? He shook his head. It seemed pretty far fetched.

"Whatever. Ilsa isn't going on any more jobs. She's a liability." He said firmly. Guerrero shrugged and disappeared back to the kitchen, having lost interest in the whole topic.

"Chance," Winston said, "I'm serious about this. If Ilsa…"

"Enough," Chance interrupted. "I'm not going to speculate on whether or not Ilsa has a crush on me! It's ridiculous! She got her kicks at the museum tonight and that's it. No more tagging along for the ride! If she tries to take part in another mission it's gonna be up to you to set her straight!"

With that Chance slunk off leaving Winston alone in the office.

Man, Winston thought to himself, this is gonna get messy.


End file.
